Open Letter to Prime Minister Browne from Former LIAT Barbadian Pilots

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We write in defense of all Barbadian pilots – past, present, and future. We take note of your potentially-damaging statements made on Point FM 99.1 on Saturday, March 20th, 2021 during the Browne & Browne Show.

Admittedly, the statements are most unfortunate coming from a Prime Minister who often claims to be a fierce proponent of the regional integration movement.

Barbadian pilots along with many others from around the region, have diligently and professionally conducted themselves in keeping LIAT aloft for decades.

Indeed, it is well established that your own country has been a major benefactor of its lengthy operation.

We laboured in the name of regional connectivity, despite years of abuse and discriminatory treatment within LIAT. We also wish to remind you, that throughout the year 2020 alone, you publicly declared that LIAT’s demise was attributed to the COVID 19 pandemic.

This was followed by scathing attacks on your own Prime Ministerial colleagues in Barbados and St. Vincent, blaming them for sabotaging LIAT. As those attacks on your colleagues have been almost totally ignored, you are evidently now placing sole accountability on the backs of the former Barbadian Pilots, pilots now cruelly dismissed without due compensation.

Yet, no mention whatsoever of the widely known gross mismanagement of the company over the years, and even most recently while in administration. This serves to bring your credibility and ultimate motivations further into question.

With respect to your misplaced view of the motive for the existing Constitutional motion, your brazen attempts to mislead the public is, in our humble opinion, ludicrous and malicious.

This motion was brought so as not to severely prejudice the claimants in a matter that was before the courts approximately five years before the Antigua Companies Amendment Act 2020, that you do vehemently defend. It is therefore false to insinuate that it is aimed at disrupting your efforts to revive LIAT.

Prime Minister Browne, you have effectively made clear to the region, that a lawsuit claiming the unlawful removal of over five million dollars from our salaries has no place before the Antigua & Barbuda courts of law. Where then, are we expected to seek justice for a wrong which predates the sweeping legislation imposed by your Government, that blocks all access to the court system?

One thing which your comments have certainly accomplished Sir, is to underscore the credibility of the numerous allegations of victimization highlighted by Barbadians working in LIAT over the years, many of which remain unresolved before the courts to this day. The overwhelming support demonstrated to our plight continues.

Your flagrant attempts, in our opinion, to misrepresent the facts of the entire LIAT fiasco to the Caribbean people, are not going unnoticed. The blatant hostility towards Barbadians will not lower us into the proverbial gutter.

With many of us having served in Antigua, we are satisfied that the type of divisive rhetoric expressed by you does not reflect the sentiment of a large cross-section of the people of that nation. We believe we possess a right to have our matters fairly heard before the courts, free from political interference.

No number of insults, derogatory remarks, or attempts at intimidation, will sway us from our most fundamental right to the pursuit of justice via the courts. This, despite your “herculean” efforts to have it otherwise.

Take note that in light of your discriminatory, disparaging, and potentially career-damaging public pronouncements, we are presently exploring the legal options available to us.

Sincerely Yours,

The Not “Rotten”, but “Righteous” Barbadian Pilots.  

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9 COMMENTS

  1. This prime minister have crowned himself a God and does not like to see anyone standing up for their rights….if they only do that he level threats against them and start name shaming them …not to long ago people in this country was out raged over the unsanitary working conditions at the post office ….you know what he did?….threatened to replace them with the Defense force ….this man is acting like a dictator, what he says must just be accepted …justice will be served to the pilots !

  2. There’s been underhanded dealings, sabotage, cronyism, bad mindedness, mismanagement…. Need I say more.. and ALL are guilty!

  3. Well said Liat pilots and congrats for standing up to the dictator of Antigua. With Antigua refusing to join the CCJ unlike Barbados and the other progressive Caribbean countries, you may have to take your case all the way to the prohibitively expensive Privy Counsel in England. The blame for Liat failures lie in ridiculous mismanagement and redundant jobs in Antigua. They should have merged earlier with one of the other Caribbean carriers to be a more efficient organization, but that would have meant loss of the overstaffed jobs in Antigua. Now they can only blame pilots….

    • Stupessssss u sound like one ninny goat. Wha mek dem na tek dem gripe to fu dem dey PM?? Last time me check dem dey min be one shearholder to. All ah dem rape LIAT over da years and now de sugar gone dem kick um to da curb lakka one dead dawg.

  4. When the PM directed his criticism it was to a particular sector of pilots in Barbados whom he said it is known that they were a rotten element that brought LIAT to where it is now and with their latest action would in the worst case scenario bring LIAT definitely to its knees and forced into liquidation. Now if the entire pilot group wants to take this criticism as directed to them then so be it. But the Pm was specific. The same way he called a specific section of the BPM deracinated imbeciles. Next the entire BPM says he was calling all Barbudans deracinated imbecile. It’s like people do not comprehend proper English language.
    Sometime you have to say who the cap fits let them wear it.

  5. I hope calmer heads will prevail on both sides. This hostility serves no meaningful purpose and will only cause greater division between our two people. There’s nothing worse than a community fighting among itself. Who benefits? No one.

  6. Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Hon. Gaston Browne is a very strong Man . These Pilots must understand Hon. Gaston Browne is NOT a pushover. Antigua Government is NOT responsible for paying Barbadian PILOTS Their severence. Barbados is responsible for paying your severence.

  7. /Take note that in light of your discriminatory, disparaging, and potentially career-damaging public pronouncements, we are presently exploring the legal options available to us./-should the pilots follow through on that threat Browne will be in more hot water. Confiscation of the Liat planes if they land anywhere outside Antigua is a real possibility.

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